On Not Crying

I don't cry. Not so much. I gave up crying that day in March of 2005 when, after not being able to stop crying for 6 weeks in the shower every morning while mourning the sudden death of my beloved grandma, I realized I needed some additional pharmaceutical assistance. And thus, the Lexapro. Which has mostly been a great thing, but which keeps me from crying. Most of the time. Which I hate, as I am a crier. I am one of those people who in my natural, non-medicated habitat cry while preaching sermons, while watching loved ones say goodbye to the dying, while witnessing a phenomenal sunset (trite as that sounds), and during many Hallmark commercials (ditto the trite). But with Lexapro...well, I stand detached and I watch (sort of like Peter Sellers in that one movie where he's the gardener, entitled Being There where he says, "I like to watch" in an endearing, nerdy, and not-stalkerish at all sort of way).

The not crying has it's many positives. I actually do my work, rather than fretting about my work. I actually step out of myself and stop panicking about what I would do in this situation. I actually make it the way it should be, less about me and more about the patient, imagine! I actually get up on mornings when I used to wallow in the dark and ponder the dark existence of the ominous scary things awaiting me in the world...student loan interest rate increases, butt saggage, possible infertility, the step-mothering angst, not fulfilling my potential, global warming, and the chance that somone may not like me or that my Greek neighbor's dementia will become so severe that he and his adorable wife will have to move out of their home, thus disrupting the rightness of the universe on Strathdon Drive (see, it is all about me in my non-Lexapro induced state, isn't it?).

BUT...and you knew this was coming, didn't you sweet blogees? The tears, I miss them. The tears connected me to so much of myself, and I feel like I lost parts of me to find parts of me, if that makes sense. I get homesick for my tears, and while I know that I will return to that part of myself in time, that there will be a wonderful time when life feels stable enough to reenter my non-medicated state (like when I'm not struggling with infertility woes), it still gets lonely on this side of the veil.

So, I wrote all this, and what I really wanted to write was: I cried tonight when I read the Church of the Brethren's account of their every-four-years National Youth Conference where 3,000+ youth stream into Colorado and do what youth do best...exude, shine, brighten. Y'all, I am a cynic. I am such a cynic, and yet when I read the accounts of what the future of the CoB holds I find myself whispering, "Yes, oh my God, yes." And the tears feel good on these dry cheeks.